candidates called for tougher responses on terrorism.
GIULIANI TAKES OVER AT CHERRY BOMB GROUND ZERO
GOP candidates debate; vow retaliation
By Ariel Mutha-Tafoya, Fantasy Sports Network
With rescue workers still sifting through the rubble of the Cherry Bomb Café, former New York City mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani arrived in Nashville Saturday, saying he was ready to lead.
By late Saturday, Giuliani was strolling the perimeter, wearing a hard hat and sending out shouts of encouragement to police and firemen as they combed the wreckage of the ill-fated 12-South hot spot, which burned to the ground in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Though Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has said no determination has yet been made for the cause of the blaze, Giuliani was quick to pronounce that terrorists had struck America again. “It’s one of the Axis of Evil for sure,” he said. “Iran, North Korea or Triki Bobber.”
On Sunday, all of the GOP presidential candidates used the backdrop of “Nashvegas Ground Zero” for their weekly debate. The event had been scheduled for Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas but was moved at Giuliani’s request and at the agreement of the other participants.
During his prepared remarks, Giuliani vowed that U.S. retaliation against al Qaeda would be “swift and sure.” He also praised the efforts of Boyd X. Biggs and the Beelzebubbas organization for their apparent freelance anti-Taliban safari in Waziristan. “Give Americans the tools, and we’ll finish the job,” Giuliani said.
Fred Thompson said all Americans were mourning the loss in his native Tennessee and, for his part, said the U.S. would invade Iraq and “make those bug-eyed bastards pay.” When reminded by John McCain that the U.S. had already invaded and occupied Iraq, Thompson fired back, “Yeah, but this time I’ll make sure we get Saddam, by God.”
Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney asked everyone in the audience to sing the national anthem, then recognized GQ Denney confidante Furious George, who had arrived earlier from France, and led the audience in “La Marseillaise.”
Near the end, Muslim residents of the Baker Nation, who had been watching quietly, broke into spontaneous chants of “Death to the Great Satan Iran, the Li’l Satan Triki Bobber, and the Infidel Whore Hillary Clinton!” Soon, all of the GOP candidates except Mike Huckabee had joined them.
“I don’t think even Ronald Reagan could have pulled off political theater like that,” one official from the Giuliani campaign said afterward.
